10 years later: A state at risk?

Saturday

EXETER — Ten years ago, New Hampshire's demographics dilemma was a "gathering storm." Today, a local trio has reunited to address what has now become a "crisis."

In 2008, Peter Francese, Lorraine Stuart Merrill and Jay Childs launched "Communities & Consequences: The Unbalancing of New Hampshire's Human Ecology and What We Can Do About It." The pairing of a book and documentary addressed issues of a graying state, lack of affordable housing, land development and the effects of an unbalanced population on things like schools, health care and town government. This year, they'll do it again.

New Hampshire is now the fastest aging state in the nation, and the second oldest state behind Maine. As a result, according to Francese, New Hampshire is pushing out young people because their needs are not being acknowledged, or funded.

"The tagline this time is 'Solutions for a state at risk,'" said Francese, a demographer from Exeter. "The risk is that employers will have such a hard time finding workers that they will leave the state. That’s a serious risk. A decline in the workforce is essentially a permanent recession. We are in peril of that. What we’re talking about this time is not just describing the state’s demographic problems, but in fact saying we are aging so fast and our school population is declining fast enough that we are in danger of becoming a place that employers will just avoid, and certainly young people as well."

Stuart Merrill, former Department of Agriculture commissioner and a resident of Stratham, said in 2008 many people pushed back on the group's assertions, but "now it's like conventional wisdom."

"I see it affecting almost everything in the state," she said. "I see it affecting all ages and classes of people, rural and urban, in different ways. I’ve seen young families or young couples who want to live here in New Hampshire, in the communities where they grew up, and there’s no way they can afford it. There’s no place for them, and we’re suffering the consequences for that now."

Childs is a filmmaker, who said if the group isn't careful, "these conversations can devolve into pinning one generation against another."

Francese said part of the group's charge is to inform New Hampshire citizens that they can do something. Support affordable housing developments at Planning Board meetings, but speak against age-restricted housing. Accept children in communities by supporting schools, for example. Talk to town governments about loosening up zoning regulations when it comes to housing.

"The principles of smart growth have everything to do with what we’re talking about here," Stuart Merrill said. "People of different ages and places in the life cycle have different goals as far as housing. We need to have more diversity of the types of housing and locations. So much of it is attitudes, we need to change the way we think. We need to be much more inclusive and welcoming."

New to the initiative this time is Exeter resident Caroline Piper, who will lend her perspective as a mother trying to navigate these obstacles for her young family.

"It's the interplay of policies and practices related to housing, education and workforce that is shaping our demographics and laying the path for our future," Piper said. "We tend to talk about and think about issues in silos. But everything in life is interrelated. If you start to pull on a loose thread on the sleeve of your sweater, you quickly realize it's not just the cuff but rather the whole sweater that's connected to that one strand."

Piper will serve as research director for the project, which will consist of a 30-minute documentary, shorter single-story modules, a database and a web portal; essentially a comprehensive tool kit that organizations and people working on these issues can use to help re-balance New Hampshire's human ecology and ultimately the economy.

The group is currently looking to secure funding for the project, which is called "Communities and Consequences II: Solutions for a state at risk."

"There’s no substitute for young people and employers engaging in the conversation and not just being the same people who go to these (town) meetings all of the time," Childs said. "We need those stakeholders who are young people."

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